


Night at the Morgue

by ebonyfeather



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebonyfeather/pseuds/ebonyfeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Zombi_fic_ation on Livejournal, for this prompt: <i>Bodies have been disappearing from the morgue lately and Sherlock can't find a logical reason for it; until John jokingly suggests zombies. Then shit gets real. BAMF!John a huge bonus</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night at the Morgue

Eyeing Detective Inspector Lestrade from his sprawled-out position on the sofa, Sherlock sighed.

 

“Why are you telling me this?”

 

Lestrade shook his head. “I just thought it might interest you, that’s all.”

 

Standing, Lestrade thanked John for the mug of tea and took the ID card he’d come for in the first place, the one that Sherlock had pick-pocketed from Anderson at the last crime scene and subsequently used to pull rank on a temp and gain access to the evidence room at New Scotland Yard.

 

“You know,” John began, coming back into the room after letting Lestrade out. “You could go down there and have a look.”

 

Sherlock continued to stare at the ceiling.

 

“Or you could sit there and be miserable all day,” John continued. “Anyway, it’s your own fault that you’re bored. Lestrade offered you that case yesterday-”

 

“The shoplifting? Boring.”

 

“They took nearly thirty grand’s worth of gear. And today? I would have thought that bodies disappearing from the morgue would be right up your street. If not that, then we could see it he’s got any cold cases for you to play with. You’ve been lying there for the last two days…”

 

Looking over at John, he knew that the other man wasn’t going to give in.

 

“You’re not going to leave me alone until I agree, are you?”

 

John shook his head, a happy smile on his face, and Sherlock sighed again.

 

“Fine. We’ll go to the morgue.”

 

~.~

 

Sherlock spent less than ten minutes in the morgue before deciding that this was more interesting than he was willing to admit to John. He’d expected it to be nothing more than human error, but everyone he spoke to seemed just as perplexed as each other. His internal bullshit-detector didn’t go off once; they were all genuinely confused.

 

The first to vanish had been a man in his thirties, who had suddenly started having convulsions during a meeting a couple of days ago. His body had been shut away by the mortician after he’d finished with it, but when he’d come in the following morning, the drawer had been empty, the door swinging open.

 

The second was a young woman who had collapsed while out jogging. As the police were unsure as to what had caused her to collapse, she had been brought here and was due to be autopsied that morning. However, when the mortician had gone to move her to the table to begin the autopsy, he discovered that, like the other man’s, the drawer was empty.

 

The last had only vanished in the early hours of Monday morning, an elderly woman who had become ill at her bingo game the previous morning and gone home. When she couldn’t reach her, her daughter went to her house and found her in bed, dead. This time, she had been on the table, scheduled for autopsy later that morning. The night porter swore he left her in the drawer in the morgue, just after midnight, but by the time the day staff came on duty at four am, she was gone. No one had seen anyone else go into the morgue.

 

So far, the only connection that they had was that the bodies always vanished at night, and roughly two days apart.

 

“Maybe they got up and walked out on their own,” John suggested, making Sherlock glare.

 

“Yes, yes, very amusing. Those ridiculous horror films you insist on watching are impeding your intelligence,” he grumbled, not wanting to admit that, at present, the less than rational part of his brain was starting to think it looked that way. Usually, by now, he had the case solved and wrapped in a nice neat bow for Lestrade to step in and make the arrests. This, however, didn’t make sense. Something was off, and he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

 

Sherlock hated that feeling.

 

“We’ll wait here tonight,” he announced, causing John to stare in disbelief. “What? Bodies have gone missing every second night, which makes tonight their next opportunity presuming that they stay to the same pattern. We’ll wait here and catch the body snatcher red-handed when they return.”

 

“In the morgue?”

 

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You’re a doctor, and you were in the army; surely a few dead bodies won’t bother you?”

 

“If it did, would I put up with you keeping body parts in the fridge?” he pointed out. “It’s just that I might have had plans for tonight, thanks for asking.”

 

Sherlock smiled, glad to be back on firmer ground with this one. “You mean, ordering Kung Po chicken, fried rice and prawn crackers before parking your rear on the sofa and watching repeats of CSI?”

 

“How did you know what I was going to order?”

 

“Really, John. It’s Wednesday, you only order two things, and you had Sweet and Sour King Prawn last week. I should think that even Mr Li at the Chinese takeaway knows what you’re going to order before you say it.”

 

“Just for that, I won’t tell you what I was going to do to you _after_ CSI…”

 

Sherlock realised that he’d probably just talked himself out of what could have been an extremely fun night. Bugger. Oh well, from the expression on John’s face, he wasn’t going to play now anyway so they might as well go back to plan A. He went to the small office, barely more than a room with a desk and a couple of filing cabinets in it, thinking that it would do nicely, and looked back to the mortician.

 

“We’ll be back at nightfall.”

 

~.~

 

Sherlock watched as John unwrapped a cheese sandwich and opened his flask of tea, settling down in the morgue office to eat. When he caught Sherlock watching him, he held out the bag of sandwiches.

 

“Want one? Don’t look at me like that; you wouldn’t wait for me have any tea before we left and I’m hungry,” he pointed out. “Besides, if I’m going to have to run away from zombies later, I’m going to need to keep my strength up.”

 

“For the last time, these people are not getting up and walking away on their own.”

 

Famous last words, he thought, three hours later, when something moved in the morgue. Probably just the night porter, Sherlock decided. A few moments later, there was the sound of footsteps, the faint slap of bare feet on the tiled floor.

 

So, not the porter then. Sherlock met John’s gaze, glad that the other man looked as surprised as he felt.

 

“One of us should take a look,” John pointed out in a whisper so as not to draw any attention to their hiding place. “You go.”

 

“Why me?” Sherlock hissed back.

 

“Because coming back here tonight was your idea. If you’d listened to me, we would have been,” John checked his watch, “In bed by now, shagged-out and fast asleep, only to hear all about this from Lestrade tomorrow morning.”

 

He considered pointing out that it had been John’s idea to look into this case in the first place but he knew that it still wouldn’t make John go instead of him. Reluctantly, Sherlock moved toward the door, opening it a tiny crack to peer out and immediately closing it again.

 

“Well? What is it?”

 

Stepping aside, Sherlock indicated for John to look. The other man peered out before glancing back to Sherlock. The irritating bastard flashed him a smirk, muttering a happy-sounding “I told you so” as they both turned back to watch the dark haired man in the morgue. His green eyes were flat and lifeless, pale skin marred by the dark lines of the autopsy. As he stood up from the table, the blue sheet he had been covered with slid to the floor but he made no effort to cover his nakedness. He didn’t even seem to notice that he _was_ naked.

 

“What now?”

 

Sherlock frowned. “How should I know? This isn’t exactly something I’ve had to deal with before.”

 

John smiled. “So, I suppose this means that, out of the two of us, in this situation and thanks to all of those horror films you keep teasing me for watching, I’m the expert?”

 

“I hardly think that watching those dreadful, and often anatomically implausible, films makes you any kind of expert.”

 

“Fine, then you work out how to deal with them,” John told him, sitting back down.

 

“You’re enjoying this.”

 

“The zombies? No, not particularly. Hearing you admit you don’t know something? Hell yes.”

 

Sherlock knew he wasn’t going to convince John to move if he didn’t want to and so he bit back the sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue.

 

“Okay; you’re the expert. Now are you coming or not?”

 

John stood. “Come on; I want to see where he goes and we don’t want to let him get too far ahead of us.”

 

There was no danger of that, however, as they had already attracted the man’s attention. His expression changed from curiosity to one of pure animalistic hunger, and he changed direction, heading straight for them. Sherlock slammed the door again, leaning against it as fists began to beat on the outside.

 

“Well, any suggestions?” Sherlock asked. “You are the expert after all.”

 

“Oh, piss off.”

 

The banging on the door stopped after a few minutes and John risked a look outside.

 

“Ok, there’s good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is that we can now say for definite that the other bodies did indeed walk out on their own.”

 

“And the bad news would be that you know that because they’re now outside?”

 

John nodded. “The old lady, the blonde man, and the woman are there too and now they’re all looking at this door like they know dinner is behind it.”

 

Sherlock leaned to the side and turned the key in the door, locking it, before moving away from it. If John’s stupid horror films were to believed, zombies couldn’t usually work anything even as simple as a door handle, preferring instead to smash straight through things to get to the tasty humans inside. He didn’t want to risk one of them accidentally leaning on the door handle and letting themselves in, though. The banging on the door increased.

 

“Surely they’ll go away when they realise that we aren’t foolish enough to go outside.”

 

John just looked at him. “I think you’re overestimating the mental capacity of those things. I doubt they’re thinking anything except ‘There’s something in the way of our dinner’.” The wood creaked as a particularly vicious blow hit the door. “That isn’t exactly designed for security; sooner or later, they’ll get through it. If we could make a run for it, however, and lock the morgue, that should keep them contained.”

 

It seemed like something that one of the idiots in those stupid films would do, usually at the point where John would shout at the screen, telling them not to be so stupid. But, as he didn’t have any other suggestions and a burning desire not to still be here when those creatures broke though the door, he agreed. Tugging open the door, he and John barged past them using the chair from the office to push the zombies back, and made a run for it.

 

“Sherlock, move!” John shouted.

 

He was following closely, Sherlock glancing over his shoulder to keep an eye on the zombies and John every few seconds. The old woman and one of the men had red stains around their mouths as though they had been feeding before they returned to the morgue, the front of the old woman’s nightgown dirty and bloodied. If he had any doubt at all as to what would happen if they got their hands on John or himself, then seeing that settled his doubts. They needed to get out of here.

 

But he couldn’t get to the door; two of the zombies blocked his path and he felt no inclination to get too close to them. He hadn’t honestly expected them to be so agile, not after seeing the man ambling about after first rising before.

 

“Now would be good!”

 

Sherlock looked back to see John drag one of the metal trolleys between him and the old woman, shoving it into her path, pushing her back into one of the others. Their movements were becoming faster now that they had scented fresh meat, dead hands reaching out, trying to grab at him and John as their mouths opened in a snarl.

 

“Back to the office!”

 

John followed, slamming the door and locking it as soon as they were both inside.

 

“Well, that went well,” John muttered sarcastically, partly to himself. “It’s just four people, for goodness’ sake.”

 

But it wasn’t the amount of people that was the problem, Sherlock thought. It was that they didn’t know how this was being spread, meaning that even a touch from one of them, a scratch from a fingernail or a bite, could potentially infect them too. It made it difficult to fight something off when you couldn’t touch it.

 

Remembering something, Sherlock reached into his coat and pulled the pistol that John kept at home in his bedside cabinet, flipping it around to hand to John, stock first.

 

“I brought this,” he said. “For a worst case scenario,” he added, embarrassed to admit that he’d thought it would be useful, because that would mean that he’d subscribed to John’s idea of zombies all along.

 

“And you couldn’t have given me this before?” John asked. When Sherlock frowned at him, John smiled. “Thank you.” He paused to peck a kiss on Sherlock’s lips as passed by, getting a better grip on the gun as he headed for the door. “Right, that’s it. No more Mr Nice Guy.”

 

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Sherlock dialled the hospital switchboard to warn them not to let anyone come down here until further notice, but all he got was a recorded message that told him how important his call was, and that it would be answered as soon as an operator became available. With a growl of frustration, he hung up and dialled Lestrade instead.

 

“Come to the morgue, right now! I don’t care if you were asleep,” he snapped, not bothering with a greeting of any kind. “We found your dead bodies and we’re about to be eaten by them. Do I _sound_ as though I’m joking?”

 

Sherlock flinched as a gunshot rang out, the unexpected noise echoing in the morgue, catching his attention. He looked around and saw John fire three rounds into the heart of the dark haired man but it didn’t stop him. He tried again, firing two more, before John paused. He frowned for a moment when the man did little more than stagger before he shook his head, uttering what sounded like “idiot!” and aimed the gun once more. A single shot through the man’s forehead made him stop dead in his tracks and drop to the floor in a heap. On the phone, Lestrade started shouting.

 

“Yes, those were gunshots,” Sherlock told him following John out into the morgue as he talked, asking sarcastically, “ _Now_ will you come?”

 

The phone clattered to the ground, dropped as John grabbed his arm and pulled him backwards, out of reach of the other male zombie, before putting himself between them and raising the gun once more. John fired another couple of shots, taking out the second man and the old woman before the gun made a disheartening click instead of firing at the last one. He tried again, but no luck.

 

Oh dear…

 

“Sherlock?”

 

He sighed. “I was bored and you were out. It was only a couple of shots!” he said defensively.

 

“And you couldn’t reload the clip?! Never mind; I’ll deal with you later. Throw me that fire axe,” John told him, pointing to the glass case mounted on the wall next to the door as he stuffed the pistol into his pocket, kicking a metal bin in front of the last zombie to slow her down.

 

Sherlock smashed the glass with his elbow and grabbed the axe, tossing it to John and watching as he caught it one handed. Hurdling over the gurney in between them and her, he swung with precision aim, embedding the axe in the woman’s head.

 

“That was… impressive.”

 

John smiled. “You sound surprised.”

 

He wasn’t surprised, though. It was just intriguing. He’d seen John handle a gun before, but under these conditions, against multiple enemies even if they were the walking dead, it was different. He seemed to slip back into soldier mode, a sense of calm and control washing over him as he took them out with perfect shots. And then that axe… He smiled, stepping around the fallen zombie and bunching his fist in the front of John’s jumper to pull him in for a kiss.

 

“It was also rather sexy.”

 

“What, shooting zombies?” John asked, raising an eyebrow and teasing, “Weirdo.”

 

“No. You with the gun, being all commanding and protective…”

 

~.~

 

When Lestrade burst into the morgue a short time later, John and Sherlock broke apart from their embrace, emerging from the office and hastily trying to smooth creased clothing. It wasn’t their fault; this whole thing had got their adrenaline pumping.

 

Looking around at the bodies on the floor, the fire axe still protruding from one of them, and seeing no one except John and Sherlock still moving, Lestrade put his gun away again, indicating to the officers with him to stand down also.

 

“What the bloody hell happened? You said you were in danger, that it was an emergency!”

 

Sherlock shrugged his shoulders. “It was. It’s not our fault that you took too long to get here.” He looked over Lestrade’s attire and smirked. “Are you wearing pyjamas?”

 

Lestrade tugged his coat to cover the stripy pyjama top he hadn’t had time to change out of when he’d rushed to their aid.

 

“What he means to say is ‘thank you for coming’,” John said, poking Sherlock discreetly in the ribs to shut him up. “Things got a bit out of hand so I had to act.”

 

“You killed them?”

 

“Technically, no. I only shot them. Or hit them with an axe, in that one’s case. They were already dead. Sort of.”

 

Lestrade sighed. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

 

~.~

 

The next morning, as they finished giving their statements at New Scotland Yard, Sherlock asked casually,

 

“Have you found out how the corpses became reanimated yet?”

 

John glared at Lestrade. “Do not tell him. Even if your lot work it out, you make sure he never finds out, understand?” he said. “It’s bad enough finding _dead_ body parts in the fridge that he’s experimenting on; if he works out how to bring them back to life, I’ll end up fighting with undead things each time I go to get the milk.”

 

That seemed incredibly unfair, Sherlock thought. Something exciting finally happens and he’s not allowed to know about it?

 

“I mean it,” John said, cutting him off before he had the chance to protest. He lowered his voice, although it was clear that Lestrade was still listening. “If I see even one experiment regarding this, there’ll be no sex for a month.”

 

Sherlock was torn for a moment, but only a moment. A month was a long time. “Fine. I promise.”

 

Lestrade watched their exchange with a wicked smile on his face, before saying, “I suppose this is a bad time to tell you that a funeral home in Manchester also reported two bodies going missing…”

 

“Really?” Sherlock’s interest piqued once more.

 

“Don’t even think about it, Sherlock, or I’ll make it six months.”

 

 


End file.
